By now you may have already learned of the most recent attack by the Trump administration on trans people and our communities.

“The Trump administration is considering narrowly defining gender as a biological, immutable condition determined by genitalia at birth, the most drastic move yet in a government wide effort to roll back recognition and protections of transgender people under federal civil rights law.”, according to the New York Times article featuring a draft memo leaked over the weekend.

For those of us who feel un-nerved and uneasy by this news, your fears come from a very real place and are valid.

For those of us who feel like this isn’t new news at all and are angry and exhausted, your feelings come from a very real place and are valid.

These are difficult messages to receive year after year.

And at the same time, we want to remind you that we have something they don’t. Even with all the resources, power, and commitment to illusions of power, we know what it means to be resilient. We know what it means to look after one another, to share, fight like hell, hold each other, and we know how to show up in ways they might never even dream of. We know the importance of that as a means to thrive and for survival.

In a statement from the Transgender Law Center, Executive Director Kris Hiyashi writes, “The draft memo the NYT reported on this weekend, a document written by officials at HHS, is transparently a hate-motivated response to these victories. It attempts to rewrite years of progress achieved by advocates under the Obama administration. Here, written out plain, is their attempt to erase our very existence as transgender people. This memo reveals that this administration intends nothing short of our destruction…. To be clear: nothing this administration can do will undermine the scores of federal courts that have recognized our humanity and hundreds of state and local legal protections we’ve already won.”
We are being called to action again and again. Not just some of us, all of us. If you can, please support trans led leadership in any way you can. From making a donation to volunteering to uplifting each other or sending a text to the people in your life who are on your mind… there are many ways we can organize and resist with love, justice, and each other at the center.

Here are 182 groups funded by TJFP this year alone who are out there, doing this work for us all every day.

To everyone one of you who live and breathe trans justice–however you’re able to, we are so thankful for you.

Since 2013, TJFP has been supporting trans justice by moving funds directly into trans communities across the country. We are committed to supporting the extrordinary leadership of trans and gender non-conforming activists and organizers! One of the most exciting ways we’re able to bolster trans communities–outside of our annual grant making–is through the listening tour.

Initially we kicked off our tour in 2015, traveling from town to town to meet with and learn from activists and organizers about what’s going on in their local areas. To date we’ve met with trans-led, grassroots groups and organizers in 17 states. This time we’ll be sitting down to learn from groups in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.

It’s been an incredible opportunity to be with grantees, local organizers, see old friends, and meet new ones along the way.

As with every tour, we hope you’ll stay tuned as we share our journey with you.

We felt the overwhelming need our communities are experiencing and we know that oftentimes this work is happening with very little to no support. In May we reached our 50k fundraising goal, allowing us to give away $500,000 this year, but 182 groups is a lot of groups and suddenly $500,000 didn’t feel like that much anymore. Lucky for us and thanks to a few last-minute donors, we were able to increase our total grant money well past half a million dollars—all the way to $650,000!

We’re so happy and proud to announce that we exceeded our fundraising goal and raised $50,922. This means, that once again we’ll be able to distribute $500,000.00 to our grantees this year! That’s half a million dollars supporting something truly invaluable–trans justice led by grassroots, trans leadership across the country.

Over 200 individuals donated, which is awe-inspiring and humbling. We can’t thank you enough for all your generosity and support! We truly couldn’t do this without you.

We are so excited to welcome Ezak Amaviska Perez to TJFP’s 2018 grantmaking team!

Ezak was born and raised in and around Los Angeles, CA. They are a Two Spirit, Hopi Native American and Latinx community organizer. They have been leading trainings locally in LA as well as nationally for the past 12+ years. He is currently the Organizational Director of Gender Justice LA (GJLA). GJLA is a member-based, grassroots social justice organization for and led by gender non-conforming, gender fluid, two spirit, questioning, and trans people of color in LA. He is currently helping to create the first Indigenous Pride LA and was recently honored by the Sons & Brothers Portrait Series for Native American heritage month. He’s a part of a party collective called THroz, creating pop up fun-draiser parties in LA. Ezak believes that self-care & community care are critical and essential to be able to do this work for the long haul. He loves spending time in nature and thrifting.

Keiva Lei is a Native Hawaiian Transgender Woman. She was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area and has called Honolulu, Hawaii home for the last 20 years. She works as the Community Engagement Coordinator at Life Foundation in Honolulu, where she plans and facilitates programs, retreats, events, and groups, designed to empower, educate, support, and cultivate leadership and advocacy amongst the HIV+ community across the state of Hawaii. She has been living with HIV since August of 2014. Keiva works tirelessly across the country focusing on the decriminalization of HIV, eliminating stigma amongst and against the HIV+ community and rejecting the marginalization of human rights for the Trans community, especially Trans Women of Color. She sits on the Positively Trans National Advisory Board and is a 2017 graduate of NMAC’s Building Leader of Color – BLOC Program. At home, along with her partner Kevin, Keiva cares for her 16 year old daughter Maddisen and her 1 year old granddaughter Makayla. She is strongly connected to her Native Hawaiian heritage and is an award winning Hula dancer since the age of three.

“TJFP is something that I’m so excited to tell people about because I think a lot of people don’t know that this group exists–where you have trans people getting money and then deciding how can we support other trans organizations that are doing work.” – Peterson Toscano, Theatrical Performance Activist & TJFP Monthly Donor

Why donate?

In the words of monthly donor Nicole Myles, “Worlds don’t change from just one moment or movement.” Instead, as donor Harper Jean Tobin puts it, “we need many voices and many kinds of work.” As grassroots funders, we don’t give grants only to those who fit narrow ideas of success or worth. We want to fund as many groups as possible, so that all of these brilliant visions and voices have a chance to keep on growing, changing, and connecting.

Your donation helps support trans justice groups focusing on local needs—groups that many mainstream foundations consider “too small” of an investment.

Your donation helps support grassroots organizations that take risks—that try radical new tactics, that find ways to work outside pre-existing systems to support marginalized communities.

Your donation reaches grantees with no strings attachedY–allowing these brilliant leaders and activists to do their work without worrying about anyone’s approval but the communities they serve.

As our six Community Grantmaking Fellows carefully review the 216 applications we received this year–more applications than we’ve ever received before!–we see creative, dynamic responses to anti-trans threats. We see groups responding to local, unique needs, led by trans people from those communities who understand the stakes best.

These folks need your support!

Be a part of raising $50,000 more so that we can distribute, in total, half a million dollars this year–half a million that will go to urgently needed trans justice work around the country. Donor Peterson Toscano puts it best, in the video you can watch below: “When I look at LGBTQ history, it’s always been the trans people, the gender non-conforming people, who’ve been on the front lines, who really stood up. And I wouldn’t have the freedoms I have today, if it wasn’t for trans folks doing that.”

Wherever you are, however much you give, you’ll be supporting the trans leadership that has always existed and shaped our movements!

We are beyond honored to welcome Everette Thompson to this years community-led grantmaking panel.

Everette has over 20 years of experience in community organizing, organizational development, and movement building. He’s a Southerner by birth and choice, and has dedicated his career to strengthening organizational infrastructure in the South. Currently he serves as an Organizer with the Interfaith Organizing Initiative–an initiative that focuses on building strategic denominational support for congregation-based organizing on a national, state and regional level. Everette has a wide array of experiences serving different types and forms of organizations. Justice is his ministry and creating a welcoming table for everyone to dine in their divine ways is his call. Everette lives in East Point, GA with his greatest joy, Elijah, his sun and his much smarter wife Evelyn.

Isabel was born in Bogota, Colombia and moved to Miami with their family at the age of 6. They began community organizing against deportations and for immigration reform in 2007 and have since become the Membership and Organizing Director and the Florida Immigrant Coalition. Isabel has a Bachelor’s in Sociology from the University of South Florida and as a graduate student at the City University of New York, they published academic articles detailing the effects of legal status and marginalization on undocumented mothers and on immigrant adolescents in the transition to adulthood. From 2015 through 2016, they were the state coordinator of New York’s Mexican Initiative on Deferred Action. They also serve on the Board of Unite for a Fair Economy.

We are so excited to be able to share space and learn from you Isabel!